Panels are heavy, canvases are light. Panels are warping with size unless they are made of titanium, but canvas is so much easier to use and great to do impasto on it with a knife. And all that is true, if a synthetic canvas is used like that inexpensive PolyCotten canvas.
Canvas was used in the good old days simply because that was the only surface that could be made larger then a plank ore a shave of bark from a tree. But now we have all the paraphernalia of surfaces to create art at any size.
In the good old days artists had to be chemists and hunters as well in order to get enough rabbet glue to cover a canvas and fiddle around with oils that dry, sort of. Mixing up pigments and hoping for the best that that will stick to a canvas. A lot of skills were needed to do what the achieved and we now benefit from superior products based on those skills. But are we using them?
I do understand that artists are eager to have their art preserved for ever, but that is not possible if using materials from the past. There are many reasons for that and I can explain it in more detail if required.
Oils are good on canvas; Acrylics are good on paper. That’s how I paint.
I use PolyCotton canvas and cover both sides with glue; how to mix it or obtain it has been explained in detail by Kith. Because it is covered on both sides, the cotton in the canvas is protected from any humidity that may cause a breakdown due to fungus ore any other bacterium. The reason I don’t use an acrylic base on canvas, apart from what’s already painted on by the manufacturer is it dries to lean, i.e. to hard for a canvas. There are ways around it but that has nothing to do with art anymore, and that I belief is what we want to spend our time on. Starting with acrylics under oil is a legitimated way of layering a painting, but not on a gesso/glue surface.
Due to the synthetic in the canvas, it is flexible and stretches very nicely. I always use a stretcher-frame 2 inches larger then the outer frame. That gives enough room to re-stretch the canvas if necessary later on.
Acrylics are the best paints around, but using them correctly requires a steep learning curve and I am still learning.
Firstly they are water based and therefore dry accordingly to there surrounding environment; may it be paper that sucks out the moisture or the air. If that happens they all go belly up and look flat. Therefore the first thing to do is, to forget about that fast painting.
The second thing is the surface to use.
You can’t use it on a surface covered with gesso ore glue. It has to have a base of acrylic or something similar. If you try using a canvas, then you have to be an expert in polymeric disciplines to achieve a result that would keep your art hanging around for a wile. Therefore I would suggest to use a board or what I prefer, paper.
I use art that went pear-shape on watercolor papers, usually 140lb, 300gr which I treat with some acrylic house paint. That provides a very good surface for acrylics or oil painting in any form of impasto and is ready to be put under glass. I have done acrylics on canvas, but I went to a lengthily stretch in order to avoid any embarrassment.
Now there is something embarrassing about some artists who don’t know how to hang a paper. Well it goes like this:
If you frame a paper, it has to be hang, meaning, stuck up at the top ‘only’ with “none asset tape” that can be bought at any art store. The reason is that the paper has to move freely against other things in the frame, and if the paper is tough, it can touch the mount or backing and still is able to move. If that is not done properly the paper will wobble all over the place and create wrinkles with age. Remember that everything around us is expanding or contracting in a different way and at different times.
Now what was it I wanted to say?
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